


The Harder They Fall

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Series: Sportsfest 2018 [37]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Child Injury, High Octane Flirting, Kid Fic, M/M, Parental Bonding, single dads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 03:35:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15963854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: Sugawara Koushi was a single dad at their usual playground, and courtesy of another single dad of the stunningly attractive variety, he ended up with a lapful of coffee for his trouble. But when a small disaster interrupted their budding rapport, Suga learned that this Oikawa Tooru guy was actually good in a crisis. Maybe meet cute wasn't dead, after all.





	The Harder They Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Sportsfest 2018 bonus round 2.

Suga inhaled the fresh air at the park on a fine spring day, and beside him, little Shouyou did the same while beaming up at the warm kiss of sunshine. Chuckling, he ruffled his son’s hair and knelt to give him a hug. “You ready to have some fun, Shou-chan?”

“Yeah!” Shouyou tugged at Suga’s arm in a vain effort to propel them toward the playground. “Let’s go, Papa!”

“All right, all right.” He took Shouyou’s hand, and he corralled his child’s efforts to bolt in the direction of his favorite part of the park — the jungle gym.

Finding a nearby bench, Suga unleashed Shouyou on the playground and chuckled while he spidered up the jungle gym in a matter of seconds. He sat back and sipped his coffee, watching Shouyou scaling every corner of the bars. 

He never did suspect the elbow that slapped the side of his head and hurled his coffee into his lap.

“Oh, that is going to be hell to wash out,” Suga groaned, whipping his head around to see who decided to ruin his favorite pair of trousers. His eyes widened when he saw who could have been the most beautiful man in all of Sendai. “Whoa.”

A tall man with wavy brown hair, trendy glasses, and a face that didn’t quite smack of remorse leaned over and crooned, “Oh, dear, I am so sorry.” He swept around the bench and sat next to Suga. “I hope that wasn’t hot.”

It wasn’t, having lingered in his hand for a good half hour, but Suga had a sneaking suspicion the man might have known that already. “I’ll live.” 

“In that case —” He extended a hand and smiled widely at Suga. “— the name’s Oikawa Tooru.”

Suga accepted the gesture and squeezed harder than strictly necessary, and he enjoyed watching Oikawa’s eyes bulge in surprise far too much. “Sugawara Koushi. My friends call me Suga.”

Oikawa winked and asked, “Any chance I get to be a friend?”

Chuckling, Suga replied, “Only if you pick up the dry cleaning tab.” Arms crossed, he waggled his brows. “You so did that on purpose.”

Choking on his own breath, Oikawa’s face reddened and he hid his face in his hands. “I thought it was smooth, okay!” However, he was still smiling when he looked over at Suga once again. “I couldn’t just . . . not talk to you. That would be a waste.”

“You’re one of those people who are really smart but kind of stupid at the same time, aren’t you?” Suga reached over and flicked Oikawa’s forehead. “If you want to talk to me, you could try hello.”

“Noted.” The embarrassment slowly oozed from Oikawa’s cheeks, and he reclined back on the bench, his arm snaking behind Suga’s shoulders. “So, which one is yours?”

Suga pointed over to where Shouyou was hanging upside-down on the bars laughing. “The red-headed little monkey over there.”

Oikawa’s eyes widened. “His mom must have some extremely red hair. He looks like you, though.”

“Something like that.” Suga sighed. This was the part he hated about mingling with other parents at the park. Shouyou was his son in every way that mattered, but his mother had been a surrogate and not someone Suga actually knew. He’d certainly never slept with her; they were not of compatible persuasions.

“Interesting.” Oikawa studied him carefully, and Suga felt like all of his secrets were on display. “I apologize for making assumptions.”

Warmth tickling at his own cheeks, Suga blurted, “It’s because I’m gay.” He tucked his face in his shirt and drowned in the strong scents of coffee and embarrassment. “I can’t believe I said that.”

He surfaced when he heard the rich peal of Oikawa’s laughter. “I had a feeling. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have bothered trying to hit on you.” Averting his attention over to the playground, Oikawa pointed toward a grumpy-looking black-haired boy in the sandbox trying to mold a ball out of sand. “That one’s mine. Tobio-chan definitely takes after his father, with the grouchy poopface and all.”

Suga recoiled from Oikawa at those words. “If you’re with someone, should you really be flirting with strangers in the park?”

Oikawa waved a hand and huffed. “Oh, we’re not actually together. My sister ended up pregnant again, even on birth control. She was trying to advance her career and couldn’t handle a second kid, so I told her I’d take him in case she ever changed her mind. 

“One day, she asked to talk to me and I thought that’s when she would take Tobio-chan back, but she came with adoption papers and told me she wouldn’t want him to go to anyone else.”

Holding his breath as the story unfolded, Suga felt a pang of empathy for Oikawa. “I’m glad you got to keep him. It’s hard for guys like us to have kids, let alone ones with a little bit of us in them.”

Oikawa opened his mouth to reply, but a shriek pierced the air. Suga turned back toward the playground and was on his feet in an instant, his heart plummeting into his stomach. 

He dropped to his knees at the base of the jungle gym, where Shouyou’s legs buffeted the ground while he clutched his definitely broken left arm. Shouyou’s good arm sought Suga, and he took that tiny hand in his while brushing stray mulch from the playground floor from Shouyou’s face. “Look at you, Shou-chan. You’re a mess.”

Someone knelt next to Suga, and he was surprised to find Oikawa there, with his wide-eyed son not far behind. Over his shoulder, he gave Tobio a sober look. “Go get my bag, Tobio.”

Tobio nodded sternly and sped off to comply. Suga shivered as Shouyou let out another pained screech. “What do I do?”

Oikawa gave him a sympathetic smile. “The bone needs set. Can you go find me a couple of sticks that are pretty straight — at least a centimeter thick and around twenty-five long?”

Relieved to finally have something to do with himself other than grind his teeth in worry, Suga sped off to complete the task and came back a couple of minutes later with his quarry. He handed them to Oikawa, who gave him a thumbs-up and a grin, and he watched in awe when he used the sticks and supplies from his newly-arrived bag to set and splint Shouyou’s arm.

When he finished, Shouyou’s cries finally dulled to a whimper, and Oikawa carefully scooped him up, depositing him into Suga’s arms. “I’ll drive you to the hospital.” He chortled. “So much for meet cute.”

Eyes threatening to water from relief and stress and a bucket of other things Suga’s brain was already too tired to process, he choked, “Yeah.”

He settled in the backseat of Oikawa’s car, with Shouyou curled up in his lap and Tobio on his other side. Suga thumbed away the moisture from Shouyou’s tear-streaked face, his whole chest aching. He should’ve been looking, but instead he was worried about —

“Stop that right now, Suga-kun,” Oikawa ordered, glaring at him through the rearview mirror. “It’s not your fault.”

“But —”

“He’s a child. Getting in trouble is easy when you’re that age. God knows I did.” He reached back through the center console, and Suga reached out to give his hand a squeeze. “My best friend and I growing up should’ve had frequent flier miles at the clinic in our neighborhood. One of us was always banged up, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Suga squeezed his eyes shut and repeated Oikawa’s words over and over in his head hoping they would stick. However, his thoughts were derailed when another small hand reached out and gripped Shouyou’s. “‘Salright, Shou-chan. Daddy is a good doctor.”

Shouyou sniffled loudly and beamed red-faced at Tobio. “Wanna be my friend?”

Tobio wrinkled his nose. “No.”

Oikawa wheezed loudly in the front seat. “Tobio-chan! I don’t know how you ended up being such a rude child.”

But even as Oikawa chided, Tobio edged closer so he could hold onto Shouyou’s hand, and Suga draped an arm over his tiny shoulders. “I think we’ll be okay, Oikawa-kun. We have a cease fire.”

The trip into the hospital was stressful and long, but Oikawa never left and helped keep Suga in the loop about how Shouyou’s injury was being treated. While Oikawa did that, Tobio dozed on a bench in the waiting room before disappearing into the hospital’s recreation room with a pocket full of coins to play games.

Once Shouyou’s arm was solidly in a cast and they were finally able to leave, Oikawa drove them home, with no need to return to the park since Suga had taken the bus. On the curb, Suga clutched a sleeping Shouyou and gave Oikawa an exhausted smile. “Thank you so much. I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.”

“I know.” Oikawa took Suga’s keys and opened the door for him. “I’m a sports medicine therapist. Kids get into all sorts of trouble. It worries us parents a lot more than it does them.”

Oikawa waited outside while Suga tucked Shouyou in. When Suga re-emerged in a clean shirt, Oikawa guffawed. “I forgot about that. I hope I was worth the extra laundry, Suga-kun.”

Scratching at the shrimp print on his faded t-shirt, a relic from his high school days, Suga yawned loudly. “I’ll let you know in the morning. You’re buying me fresh coffee and not spilling it on me.”

“Then it’s a date.” He stepped closer to Suga, and Suga held his breath in anticipation. Oikawa’s fingers traced his jaw, stopping underneath his chin to gently urge it upwards. “Suga-kun?”

“Yes?”

“Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?”

A smile blossomed on Suga’s face. “I’d mind terribly if you didn’t.”

Oikawa brushed a kiss to Suga’s mouth and murmured, “Until tomorrow, then?”

“Maybe we’ll find some trouble of our own to get into,” Suga teased, and he enjoyed the way Oikawa’s cheeks turned beet red. “I’m joking. I’ll probably be toting a sleeping kid. Or a crying one, depending on how fast the pain meds the doctor prescribed kick in.”

“Sleeping.” Oikawa backed toward the door, not looking away from Suga. “I’ll probably have one of my own.”

Suga nodded sympathetically. “I don’t work tomorrow. Where does Tobio-chan go for daycare while you’re at work?”

“My mom watches him. She doesn’t trust daycare.” Oikawa bumped into the gate leading to the street, almost tripping over his own shoes. “Where does Shou-chan go?”

“Preschool.” Suga raised a brow at Oikawa’s graceless display. “I’m a teacher, so he goes to school with me and leaves when I do.” 

Oikawa didn’t look away from him for an instant as Suga jogged across the sidewalk and kissed him solidly on the mouth. Oikawa’s surprised but enthusiastic response was ruined, however, by the disgusted face Tobio made at them through the window of the car. “I think we’re being watched.”

“He doesn’t miss a thing, unfortunately.” Oikawa pecked Suga on the lips and headed for his car. Before he got in, he said, “It’s nice to meet you, Sugawara Koushi. You’re certainly a refreshing person.”

“You’re not so bad yourself.” Suga waved as Oikawa pulled away, and even when he was back in the house and tucked into his own bed, he couldn’t help but think that Shouyou is going to have a lot more playdates, and so would he.


End file.
